CycleDog: Monday Musette

Q-Factor

Beth at BikeLoveJones has an easily comprehensible explanation of Q-Factor and why it's important. Think "knee pain!"

tech talk: crankarms and Q factor

Illustration by Daniel Rebour, possibly the greatest technical illustrator ever, and greatly admired and loved by bicycle historians because of the quality of his work.
For more, see these websites:

http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/rebour.html
http://www.blackbirdsf.org/rebour/

http://www.ciclisucarta.it/stuff/rebour_en.htm

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(heads-up: I'll do my best to clarify things here for those readers who don't work on their own bikes, but if something's not clear, just ask.)

One of the things that most folks don't think much about is something called Q factor. It's the measured distance between the ends of the crankarms (where the pedals bolt on) if both arms were mounted pointing the same way. I don't know what the Q stands for, though I assume it's mathematical. (Since I've never been good at math that involves letters of the alphabet, let's just leave it at that.)
Q factor is measured in millimeters. A good Q factor is in the 140's to around 150; most crankarms today START at 160 and go up from there, meaning your feet will be spaced more widely apart as you turn the cranks.

Survey

monkeymeter left a new comment on a post from 2005: "A question about road courtesy...":

Here is a poll anyone can vote on: Are Truck Drivers courteous to you?
http://www.apopularitycontest.com/display_poll.php?ID=43

I haven't visited it yet, but I will sometime this evening. And of course, I'll post some comments on it here in CycleDog.

For Peanut...

I'm happy to mention your blog (link), because you're leading a life that I only dreamed of in my youth. I would have loved to be a professional bicycle racer, but I had too many negatives. First, I was too damned slow! But beyond that, I never had time for training since I had to work. And I married far too young. It didn't take, but marriage has demands on time.

So my racing was more the Walter Mitty variety. That was all long ago. These days, I don't do any competitive events, mostly limiting my riding back and forth to work. The plan is to keep riding right through retirement, until I'm not physically capable of riding any more.

...and don't get me thinking about Erica Jong and the library stacks! I'm a middle aged man. Oh! My heart! My heart!

And finally...

If you don't read James at Bicycle Design...well...you should but if that's not possible just look at the pictures!

7.23.2007

ORYX time trial bike

Several of you pointed out this concept bike to me over the weekend; thanks for all the tips. The ORYX time trial bike was designed by Harald Cramer, a recent graduate of the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg in Germany. The design looks nice, especially the integrated front chainwheel/crank. I also like the subtle graphics that Harold chose for the raw carbon frame. I won’t elaborate much about the design since you can find several other blog posts about it at this point. If you haven’t seen them, check out the posts here, here, and here for more info.

But wait! There's more!

I stumbled across this after I'd posted all that stuff up above. If you like the Bicycle Design blog, you may like this one too. This is more art than bicycle, and it's absolutely gorgeous engraved titanium.

From: Pedal! Damn it!

However, it was at the 2006 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, where Merlin took the leap to full engraving of the Cyrene, that took my breath — and stole my heart — away. No gaudy, loud, eye-frying decals or stickers which hint at a newcomer's insecurity — just understated elegance. Confidence.